Beauty | Lifestyle

•MY EXPERIENCE ON THE PILL AND WHY I CHOOSE TO GO WITHOUT•

So I have always wanted write blog posts that some bloggers may not address and felt like this was a good start. I have been inspired by Grace Francesca’s recent YouTube video on her experience with contraception and thought it was great!

Before I start I would like to do a little disclaimer. This is my own experience with the pill and every girl is different✨

There have been many times when I wanted to seek advice from girls just like myself and haven’t been able to find much online. Let’s face it we have all had to make a decision on contraception at some point in our lives,if not soon. But do we really want to put something in our body that we know nothing about? That has countless side effects??

My experience started when I got into a serious relationships. I was 19 and definitely didn’t want to put myself at risk of pregnancy as I was just about to start university. So I visited my local doctor to find out a little more about what type of contraception would be best. I was absolutely gutted when I did as I was handed a leaflet and pretty much told to do my own research and decide.

I knew I definitely didn’t want any implants or injections so like a wuss I played it safe with the pill. I pretty much spent the whole weekend trying to figure out what would be best whilst reading girls horror stories which made it so much harder. None the less I decided to stick with my decision and I was put on Ovranette which is the combined pill. I didn’t really like the idea of having to take a pill every day for ‘x’ amount of time as I am so clumsy and forget the littlest things.

BEFORE THE PILL

So before I went on the pill Mother Nature liked to arrive very irregularly, which always had me worried about what the future may bring when it came to having kids. But I was a lot younger so didn’t seem very bothered at the time, just curious.

I often heard that people jump on the pill to regulate their cycles but to me that didn’t appeal as the cycle on the pill is synthetic.

WHILST TAKING OVRANETTE

So I was on this pill for around 2 years before I realised that it’s having serious effects on me. Whilst some days were good others not so much, but I was always told that it’s normal to have these side effects and it’s just what you have to put up with.

Whilst I never gained any weight on the pill – which some girls tend to, I reacted to it in many different ways especially if I missed one day. If the day was missed I would suffer with really bad cramps, migraines and sore breast for up to three days. I was also getting migraines a lot more than usual. This would regulate itself back to normal within 2-3 days after I carried on taking the pills correctly.

Other side effects that I also had were: low sex drive, anxiety and low mood as I don’t want to call it depression. I honestly would always feel so down and anxious about everything. My mood was constantly down and I was always grouchy. At the time you don’t really see things like this and I only realised once I actually came off the pill how much my mood had lifted. I was also sooo tired all the time.

Once I started connecting all the side effects together I knew I had to either change the pill or go onto another form of contraception. Although I had a check up with the nurse every 6 months at the time the side effects never really alerted her when I spoke of them.

So I finally had enough and booked myself an appointment with a senior doctor and I am so glad I did! The doctor done proper checks on me this time and was so shocked that I had been left on this pill by the nurses for nearly 2 years! She found that my blood pressure was extremely low which explained the constant lack of energy and the low mood but she was also so concerned that I had so many episodes of migraines and from this I was at a high risk of blood clots forming.

This frightened me and I then took the time out to get rid of the nastiness in my body.

AFTER THE PILL

So I thought my body would go back to normal fairly quickly. But I was wrong! It took over a year for it to regulate.

This really showed me how much the pill just affected me. Whilst getting back to normal I was getting my periods every other month which was worse than before the pill! This really scared me and I was told by my gp that it may be hard to have kids in the future. It honestly worried me so much so I had some tests done abroad but everything was coming out fine. Since about September last year I have been become regular and wouldn’t go back to using the pill, maybe other forms of contraception. But as long as you and your other half agree to go natural and are mature enough to be careful then for me personally that’s the best way to be.